I’ve been fortunate enough over the last week to be involved in two really great projects.

One was working in Bonnieville Ky – They are in the middle of a strategic planning process and I was hired to create a charette to help them envision their future. I went down on Thursday night with Tad Long of the KLC who has been very involved with making this project a great success.

I began by showing the crowd examples from other places we have done this kind of work – hoping to challenge and inspire them. And it worked! The 75 or so people dug in immediately and started outlining their visions. I had prepared maps and something I call a “dream book.” The dream book is a set of photographs and graphics that participants can choose from to help them describe their visions. They worked fast and furious for nearly and hour and the results were amazing. So many positive ideas from reclaiming their main street from the car, to creating an extensive trail network, to building a truly local economy. We go back on may 6th and I will share what we create

The other project was my Landscape Architecture students’ plan for a regional trail and greenway network. This the capstone project for these 5th year students. We chose the project because of the imminent success of the Legacy Trail. We called the project: Beyond the Legacy Trail.

They’ve been working in studio and with regional stakeholders since early January. The master plan, which they unveiled on Friday afternoon to about 25 folks from around the region, details a serious of trail types and routes throughout the Bluegrass. Their vision is broad and multimodal. For example, you could bike from Lexington to the Horsepark on the Legacy Trail, get on a horse and ride on a rail trail to Paris, then get in a canoe and paddle the Stoner Creek.

We’ve crafted some very strong recommendations for how this can happen as well as created an exhaustive trail standards document. The final report will be finished by first week in May – I’ll share it as soon as we get it finished.